1991.07.19 - Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, USA

Harry Sumrall wrote:GUNS FOR HIRE

GUNS N' ROSES CONCERTS USED TO MEAN DANGEROUSLY EXCITING ROCK 'N' ROLL. NOW THEY JUST SEEM TO MEAN DANGER. SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN L.A.'S BAD BOYS BRING THEIR ACT TO MOUNTAIN VIEW?

GUNS N' Roses is coming to town. GET OUT THE FIREHOSES AND RIOT GEAR!

Well, it isn't quite that bad. But Guns N' Roses' first headlining arena tour, which began May 24 in East Troy, Wis. (and makes its way to Shoreline Amphitheater tonight and Saturday), hasn't been a picnic.

Twenty shows into the tour, July 2 at the Riverport Performing Arts Center near St. Louis, the group's lead vocalist, Axl Rose, was involved in a melee when he jumped off the stage to confront a fan who had been photographing the performance. What resulted was a riot in which 60 people were injured and 16 arrested. The new venue was trashed to the tune of $200,000.

The riot also resulted in the group's stage equipment being damaged, which, in turn, forced the cancellation of the next two shows of the tour -- July 4 in Chicago and July 6 in Bonner Springs, Kan.

But that wasn't all.

On July 10, Rose stopped a show in Dallas when a whiskey bottle was thrown onstage. "If you throw stuff on stage," Rose told the crowd, "we will leave." And July 13, Rose was booed offstage in Salt Lake City when he tossed his microphone stand and yelled at the crowd, "I'll get out of here before I put anyone else to sleep."

And now, Rose is on his way to our sleepy neck of the woods.

''We have looked at all the necessary security (precautions) for this show (at Shoreline) and we are doing our best to provide a safe environment," said Gregg Perloff, executive vice president of Bill Graham Presents, this week. "We hope there won't be any problems, but we are prepared."

Prepared? How?

''Let's just say that there will be more security at this show than at one by James Taylor," Perloff said.

But while BGP officials are downplaying their worries publicly, they are nonetheless concerned. On Monday, responding to a request from the promoter of the Guns N' Roses show in Tacoma, Wash. (which BGP is co-producing), Graham flew to that city to personally see to the security setup.

Is Guns N' Roses that big and bad?

The answer to the first is certainly "yes."

Formed in Los Angeles in 1985, the group hit the top of the charts with its 1987 album "Appetite for Destruction" -- which, to this point, has sold 12 million copies worldwide. Its Grammy-nominated 1988 EP "GN'R Lies" also hit the Top 10, selling 5 million copies. In 1990, the group was honored with two American Music Awards.

Yes, it's big. At a time when many tours literally are begging for fans, Guns N' Roses' is playing to capacity crowds. In Los Angeles, three nights of the group's shows at the 18,679-seat Forum sold out in one hour (necessitating an extra show). After tonight's show at Shoreline sold out right away, Saturday's show was added. The group's upcoming European tour -- scheduled to begin in August -- is already sold out.

Yes, the group is big. But bad?

Although Rose isn't doing much talking at the moment, his record label, Geffen, is coming to his defense.

''The (St. Louis) incident isn't as one-sided as it was reported in the media," said Bryn Bridenthal, Geffen vice president for publicity. "The group's position is that, at that show, there was a breakdown in security."

According to a prepared statement from Geffen, "The fan with the camera was the last straw. During that show, a man with a six-inch knife had jumped onstage. Twice, Duff McKagan (the group's bassist) was hit with bottles. In front of the stage, a group of about 14 bikers were intimidating people in the crowd. . . . When (Axl) jumped into the crowd, he was hit in the eye and one of his contact lenses was broken. When he got onstage, he couldn't see. And when he left the stage to get another set, the riot began and the police ordered the group to leave (the venue)."

Bridenthal, who said she has worked with the group for more than five years, termed Rose "very intense."

''He is like a walking truth serum," she said. "He speaks his mind. He'll lecture a crowd if he feels it is necessary."

This tour isn't Rose's -- or the group's -- first brush with controversy. In 1988, the group was criticized for what some claimed were racist and homophobic lyrics in several of its songs. When the group accepted its American Music Awards on national television, speeches by three of the members were laced with obscenities. On May 28, the group was fined $5,000 for violating a curfew at Deer Creek Music Center at Noblesville, Ind., during which Rose berated the "scared old people" of that state. And in October of 1990, he was arrested for allegedly hitting a neighbor with a bottle (the charges were subsequently dropped).

But is there more to Guns N' Roses than a boatload of trouble?

Yes and no.

Along with its platinum albums, Guns N' Roses is an estimable rock band. At its May 9 tour "rehearsal" show at San Francisco's Warfield Theater, the group displayed a brashness and rawness that are rare in this era of slick rock "entertainers." Rose has a helium-high voice that is sometimes grating, but he also has an intense and thoroughly commanding stage presence.

At the same time, the group's sound is hardly innovative or rebellious. The songs "Welcome to the Jungle," "Paradise City" and the No. 1 "Sweet Child O' Mine" are usual rock fare -- driving and pounding but not much more.

What then, is all the fuss about with Guns N' Roses? At this point, mostly the fuss itself.

Guns N' Roses
When: 7 tonight and Saturday night
Where: Shoreline Amphitheatre, One Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View
Tickets: $22.50 (lawn tickets only available for the Saturday show)

Harry Sumrall wrote:ROCK HEROES GIVE A MORONIC SHOW

FIRST, the good news: There was no riot at the Guns N' Roses show Friday at Shoreline Amphitheater.

Now for the bad news: There was a Guns N' Roses show Friday at Shoreline Amphitheatre.

Guns N' Roses' performance, Friday -- the first of a two- night stand in the Bay Area -- proved just how far rock 'n' roll has sunk as an expressive form. It's bad enough when crummy rockers inflict themselves and their music on us but there is something infinitely more depressing when good rockers do the same.

And Guns N' Roses are good.

There were a few moments in group's two-and-a-quarter-hour set bristled with energy and intensity. Vocalist and all-around big mouth Axl Rose strutted and posed and shrieked his way through old songs and new with a feeling that was equaled by the drive and purpose of his mates.

On "Civil War," "Paradise City," and some other songs, the band members performed like true rock heroes -- which they are -- creating a grandiose sound that stirred the soul. And when they covered others' songs, they were just as accomplished. Their versions of Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" and Bob Dylan's "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" were remarkable: They handily outdistanced the live versions of those songs by their creators (Dylan could take a cue from these guys on how to perform this masterpiece).

All of which was fine, as far as it went. But that wasn't good enough for Guns N' Roses. They had to go too far, which they did as often as possible at this idiotic, sophomoric, stupid, moronic show.

Rose was the chief culprit. Not content to perform the songs, he destroyed most of them with hysterical, screaming vocals that defaced melodies and shredded harmonies. On a perfectly decent ballad like "Fourteen Years" he pushed his way into guitarist Izzy Stradlin's performance and ruined it. And on his own GN'R warhorses like "Welcome To The Jungle," his vocals were a constant annoyance, his tuneless rantings making a mockery of the songs.

And when he wasn't singing, he was baiting the ravenous capacity crowd with antics that were hilariously dumb. He seemed to confuse expressing himself with throwing his mike stand, which he must have done a hundred times. Was that supposed to be exciting, Axl?

But Rose had his accomplices. Lead guitarist Slash proved at several points that he could, indeed, play his instrument (especially his bluesy, delicate reduction of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" that served as the intro to "Civil War"). But most of the time, like Rose, he preferred to make a splash, dispensing dithering flurries of notes that had little to do with the songs in any musical sense. At one point, he stood on a ramp at the back of the immense stage and spewed notes out by the thousand -- hasn't anyone told him that he could go blind doing, ah, that sort of thing?

New drummer Matt Sorum (formerly of the Cult) was just as flashy on his solo. While his rolls were often impressive, he subverted them to the lighting scheme that went with them and at the end he was joined by bassist Duff McKagan, who slammed out extra beats on a drum while Sorum did his stuff. It was simplistic; it was silly. And the crowd loved it.

That seemed to be the point of the whole exercise: Not to play music as well as they knew how; but to play to the crowd.

And did they know how!

But that isn't what rock 'n' roll is about, is it? Rock is -- or should be -- about rockers who have a feeling in their soul (and their solar plexus) that they have to express with music. And rock is about them doing that: making the rest of us feel that feeling through the music. It isn't -- or shouldn't be -- about mindless and cynical exploiters acting like a bunch of lunatics to placate the lowest common denominator in each of us.

Guns N' Roses could have made mighty rock 'n' roll, Friday. Instead, they spent most of their time making fools of themselves and all who saw them.

Fifty minutes late, Guns N' Roses take the 'Frisco stage. Tonight there's no riot, just 30,000 reasonably behaved young people who've come down to check out this whole Guns N' Roses deal. They generally like what they see, but frequently look on the verge of becoming bored, particularly during the many of the 15 or so new songs. Actually, the sound mix is probably the main offender here: nothing is gelling, every instrument sounds disconnected from the others. Worse still, Rose's Typhoid Mary' shrink of a voice sounds under-miked and often inaudible over the guitars.

As the gig progresses, two suspicions make themselves manifest. The first is that perhaps this group isn't fully ready to make their act work night after night on this large stage. The second is that certain members appear to be too physically worn down from partying to perform a two-and-a-half hour rock gig. Slash, for one, looks dissipated and sounds disappointing. The best musician in the band (before Sorum's arrival anyway) and one of the few genuinely exciting lead guitar players to have come along in the last 15 years (Iggy Pop said last year that Slash was the best guitarist he'd worked with, bar only the Stooges' James Williamson), tonight his solos are either too tentative, too sloppy or too hit-and-miss. And his cohort, the pallid McKagan though he manages to keep his bass-lines erect, has to spend several numbers lying flat-out, his eyes closed, smoking a cigarette.

Even when it's not working musically, it's never boring, because Axl Rose is incredible to behold, working the stage like a young Jerry Lee Lewis performing gnarly thrash-metal anthems - real Devil's music. Tonight he bursts upon the stage clad in a pair of construction workers' boots, white socks, a black cardigan draped around the shoulders of his naked torso, a two-day growth of beard and a large tartan kilt that descends past his knees. Later he'll change and amble back out in an ensemble consisting of just a pair of bicycle shorts, a see-through net top and a huge white plantation owner's hat. For a guy who spends a good portion of his life battling with the theory that the rest of the world is looking at him funny, Axl Rose has a most singular way of dressing for the occasion.

But it's exactly these kind of 'personality' inconsistencies that make him so fascinating. Sometimes as he traverses the stage it becomes apparent why Rose is a perfect all-American hero for the '90s. After all, there's something of the 'pioneering' spirit about him. Like John Wayne or Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's tough, he's crazy, he speaks his mind, he stays fervently true to whatever mangled vision he's started out with, he takes no shit and he never kisses ass. Plus he's a patriot (hell, he even sports the Stars and Stripes on his bike-shorts!). To the mind-set of a country still drunk on the jubilation of "having kicked Arab ass" over in the Gulf, all the above qualities make him a man to be revered - even if certain aspects of his lifestyle and behavior are unsavory. But then again, there is always that other side - the dark side of his increasingly self-destructive 'out-there behavior'; the side that several former acquaintances, amongst them the woman who first got Guns N' Roses signed to Geffen, have defined in one word: "evil".

That side makes a brief startling appearance tonight. Rose, in an absolute frenzy, stalks the stage, smashing three or four mike-stands, one after the other. As his personal mike-stand roadie - a harassed-looking little fellow in Bermudas and a large baseball cap - scurries behind him, reshaping each mangled piece of metal, Axl Rose starts having one of his legendary mood-swings and suddenly doesn't want these fuckin' mike-stands rebuilt. He wants them all laying about the stage like disabled metallic corpses. So he kicks the roadie. Hard. "I said don't pick that mike-stand back up, motherfucker!" he hisses into his hand-mike at the guy, who stands frozen. After all, this is his job: he sees a broken mike-stand, he mends it. The audience, meanwhile, cheers this display of aggression and Rose immediately acknowledges it: "Hey, check it out - I'm having one of those irrational temper tantrums you keep reading about in the press," he chuckles. "Y'know you fuckers shouldn't encourage this sort of shit." As another song starts, he espies a mike-stand newly erect. He picks it up and hurls it like a javelin at the hapless roadie who ducks just in time. The audience watch transfixed. No one can quite believe what they've seen. At the end of the song, Rose refers back to the incident, grins his crazy grin and remarks: "Well, as you can see, being a fuckin' psycho basket-case like me does have its advantages."

Guns N' Roses without violence

Feisty metal band plays Shoreline, nobody gets hurt

By Barry Walters
EXAMINER POP MUSIC CRITIC

MOUNTAIN VIEW - It felt like any other mainstream rock concert Friday night at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. There were guys dressed like their heroes, girls dressed like groupies, even a few parents dressed like parents. No significant fights broke out, no one destroyed any equipment, chairs were not ripped up or smashed, fans did not overtake security forces and the musicians never leapt into the crowd to smash personal property; It hardly seemed like a Guns Ν' Roses show.

America’s best-selling hard rock band owes much of its popularity to its gift for stirring up controversy. Members of the L.A'.-based group have made headlines by re-cording lyrics that have been widely criticized as homophobic and racist, mumbling obscenities at the American Music Awards, allegedly bashing a neighbor with a bottle and, most recently, touching off an enormous two-hour riot when singer Axl Rose leapt into an audience to nab a fan with a video camera.

Bad manners and money

This ability to cause a commotion turns a regular concert into news, even when nothing happens. By doing and saying things ordinary folk would reject as ill-mannered in daily life, Guns N’ Roses generates curiosity that has translated into millions of dollars. Even in this recession-plagued season — by far the worst summer for concert attendence in years — Guns Ν’ Roses managed to sell out both nights at the Shoreline. The very real threat of violence did not stop fans from coming out to see what kind of egomaniacal mischief these self-appointed bad boys of rock would stir up next

The truest thing Rose said came near the end end of the 2 1/4-hour-long show: “I work to control my irrational behavior, but when I lose it, you bastards get off on it”

The crowd was unlike the kind of audience that shows up at hardcore metal concerts — the sort that lives and breathes the most extreme rock ’n’ roll possible. Most of the fans looked suburban, middle-class and unremarkable. For a major hard rock event there were a lot of short haircuts, acid-wash jeans, neon-bright jackets and sober expressions. Because the starting time had been pushed up to 7 p.m. (the opening act, Skid Row, actually took the stage at 7:35), the sun was still out.

Out of place in the sun

Sunlight does strange things to hard rock, a music with a thoroughly nocturnal sensibility. The fans that did come attired in the proper dress code — bandannas shaggy heads, motorcycle jackets, spray-on jeans, spiked everything — looked out of place under a California sun that turned the sky pink as it set. Without darkness and shadow, the mystery and menace of metal is lost. Skid Row had no stage lighting at all, only hair highlights. The group looked completely ridiculous flinging their substantial hair around in the absence of spotlights.

After Skid Row’s half-hour set, no alcohol was served. Fans ambled around the theater grounds stunned, as if they’d just lost their best friend.

Tension mounted as the break between bands went beyond 90 minutes. Bill Graham took the stage to ask t he crowd to stay out of the aisles and off the chairs. Well-versed in public speaking, the promoter managed to finish on a positive pro-rock ’n’ roll note, clearly aware of the rebellious backlash a scolding phrase might trigger. The gist of his speech — go crazy, but stay in your place — was t he very essence of corporate rock.

A skirt and vest

After several taped songs from Nine Inch Nails (an industrial modern rock band Rose has been championing lately), the headliners finally took the stage. Rose, recently voted by Rolling Stone readers and critics as rock’s worst-dressed man, was sporting a kilt, combat boots and what looked like a bulletproof vest. It was nice to see the man that once sang “Immigrants and faggots, they make no sense to me” dolled up in what was essentially a Scottish plaid skirt.

Following a couple of fast numbers, Rose introduced “a little present for Paul McCartney.” This was the Wings hit “Live and Let Die,” which will be included on one of two new Guns N’ Roses albums that should finally be released at the end of August. Transformed into a metal showcase for guitarist Slash, this rendition of the McCartney oldie was fierce and frantic, even if the local heroes in Jellyfish have been doing this song live for almost a year now.

Rose introduced several original tracks from the upcoming “Use Your Illusion” albums. One was a rocker called “Night Train,” another was a tune sung by rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, who Rose said has “a lifestyle of his own,” whatever that meant. Slash employed a voice-box device on his guitar in the Peter Frampton style of yore.

Bad vocal mix

It was times such as these when the audience looked bored. Al-though the performances were far more succinct than they were a couple of months ago at the War-field show (a public rehearsal for the this full-scale tour), much of the new material was hard to fully appreciate, given the fact of the lousy vocal mix and that most of the lyrics couldn’t be understood.

However, the concert did sustain the kind of suspense most big money-makers have rehearsed out of their shows. The group per-, formed without a set list and the unpredictability worked wonders. Bits of old hits served as intros to the band’s familiar material. The riff from Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile” introduced a dramatic version of “Civil War.” After Nino Rota’s famous theme from “The Godfather,” Rose sang a bit of Grand Funk Railroad’s “Bad Time” before launching into “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” A fragment of Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed” began Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.”

There were other surprises, not all of them good. Rose sat at the piano for “November Rain,” a power ballad that resembled any number of recent Cher hits. Here and many times throughout the set, the band struggled to reach beyond head-banging rock to attain something more grand. Although the musicians — Slash in particular — proved themselves on both new and old material, Rose failed when he tried to drop his helium-pitched whine and actually sing. When he wasn’t rushing offstage during Slash’s surprisingly melodic solos, he moved with the commanding grace of a true star. Maybe someday he’ll learn how to sing like one.

Blackstar wrote:Review (excerpt from Welcome To My Nightmare, The Vox, October 1991)

[..] That side makes a brief startling appearance tonight. Rose, in an absolute frenzy, stalks the stage, smashing three or four mike-stands, one after the other. As his personal mike-stand roadie - a harassed-looking little fellow in Bermudas and a large baseball cap - scurries behind him, reshaping each mangled piece of metal, Axl Rose starts having one of his legendary mood-swings and suddenly doesn't want these fuckin' mike-stands rebuilt. He wants them all laying about the stage like disabled metallic corpses. So he kicks the roadie. Hard. "I said don't pick that mike-stand back up, motherfucker!" he hisses into his hand-mike at the guy, who stands frozen. After all, this is his job: he sees a broken mike-stand, he mends it. The audience, meanwhile, cheers this display of aggression and Rose immediately acknowledges it: "Hey, check it out - I'm having one of those irrational temper tantrums you keep reading about in the press," he chuckles. "Y'know you fuckers shouldn't encourage this sort of shit." As another song starts, he espies a mike-stand newly erect. He picks it up and hurls it like a javelin at the hapless roadie who ducks just in time. The audience watch transfixed. No one can quite believe what they've seen. At the end of the song, Rose refers back to the incident, grins his crazy grin and remarks: "Well, as you can see, being a fuckin' psycho basket-case like me does have its advantages."

schizo wrote:We first got news of this show and tour upon exiting the venue at the Warfield Theater earlier that May, where staff handed out fliers announcing the Shoreline gigs. Talk about icing on the cake that night!

We camped out at Tower Records overnight for the BASS ticket outlet the night before the sale, and scored tickets about halfway up the first seated section.

Skid Row were on fire that night. I remember legend Bill Graham was walking up and down the stairs in our section, we tried talking to him and he kind of blew us off. GNR photographer Robert John was in the photo pit. We called out to him several times and waved for him, and he came up. After watching the Ritz show 10,000 times and seeing Axl hold up that fan-made banner, we had made our own with tons of cool stuff on it, including old club days fliers. Robert tripped on it saying he took a bunch of those shots. We asked him for a backstage pass and he said he was out of them.

At one point, GNR security was bringing down the hottest chicks in the crowd and giving them passes. This band was on top of the world and pimping it hard! The supermodel-caliber brunette rocker girl in front of us came back with an all-access sticker, and my friend and I asked her to get us a couple too. She went back down and returned with one, and chose me, maybe because I had long hair and looked like a rocker. My friend was pissed! LOL

We balled up our banner on the opening song and lobbed it down onto the stage, hoping Axl would pick it up and show it to the crowd like at the Ritz gig. Izzy saw it raining down and had to actually dodge out of the way to avoid getting hit, before a roadie ran out and took it off the stage.

I don’t remember many details from the performance other than I thought GNR crushed it that night, really killer show despite the negative press reviews.

After the show, my poor friends had to retreat to the parking lot and wait for me to invade the backstage party. I sat in the holding area with about 20 other guests waiting for about half hour, anxious to finally meet my rock n’ roll heroes. Finally, one of GNR’s crew, the dude with curly hair who looked kind of like Slash, comes in to get us. He points to about 3 or 4 of the hottest girls in the room, and without saying a word motions them to follow him. The rest of us were all told by someone else we had to leave. This was simultaneously a colossal disappointment while one of the most epic displays of rock n’ roll I could imagine! I would have done the exact same thing were I in GNR. I would return to my friends with a souvenir satin pass and not having met any of GNR that night. That would not happen until a few days later in Costa Mesa…

schizo wrote:I suspect the footage is in a vault somewhere. Typically there were multiple cameras filming the performance at Shoreline, with a live feed to the big screens for people farther back to watch. Metallica played there in ‘89 and years later released a DVD of that show on their Justice box set.